The Nightmare Offices

I am the darkness, as well as the light. I am your worst nightmare, as well as your happiest fantasy. I am death, and I am life. I am the punishment you cannot fathom, and the sympathy to which you cannot give thanks. I am the beat of your heart, and the knife that pierces it. I am the monster under your bed, and the light that comes to scare away the shadows. I am the thing you fear most. Not one soul that comes into my clutches shall escape them.

I am the death of you.

________________________________________________________________________

The room was dark but for the last of the fire, a few flames slowly licking away to nothing, not even embers. The man in the armchair was a quivering thing, and he would die with the fire. He was an old man, a money-grubbing politician; his receding hairline was light gray, his eyes the same color, darting around the room. He let his ego talk for him; he stood tall and proud. He cared about none but himself; he feared nothing.

Almost nothing.

The girl above him pressed a dagger to his throat; it gleamed in the last vestiges of firelight. She was tall, slender, young. Her husky-blue eyes gleamed along with the dagger, and her ebony braid hung like a dead snake over her shoulder. She hovered over the old man, straddling him.

“Do I scare you, Governor?” Her voice was quiet and lilting.

The old man swallowed hard. She pressed the dagger deeper into the skin of his throat. A tiny bead of blood made its way down his collar bone.

She leaned in, brought her lips just next to his ear. “Do I,” she repeated, her voice just barely a whisper, “scare you?” The fire was almost embers now, glowing softly; one tiny lick of flame dared to live.

“Answer me,” she growled in his ear. The old man cringed and gulped once more.

He dared to answer: “No.”

The girl dragged her dagger across the old man’s throat swiftly and sharply, spraying blood. She slid away from the chair just as a strong gust of wind charged through the open window, killing the fire.

“Liar.”

She closed the window and left the room with a smile on her face, satisfied with another job well done.

_

“You asked him if you scared him?” SnortedThomasGrange. “See Harlowe, that’s what I love about you – you have the sexiest way of killing people.”

The office building was a dramatic change in setting forHarloweLeigh. Having come from the Governor’s hearth to the black of night to such a brightly lit office, her eyes were still adjusting.Thomas, her best friend, coworker, and accomplice, seemed to find the whole story amusing – from the Governor’s quivering to the wind that killed the fire.

She nodded. “Yup. And get this – he actually said ‘no,’ too.”Thomaschoked on his coffee.

“What?!” He sputtered, coughing. “You’re kidding me!” The red-head laughed out loud. “I don’t know about you but if you were straddling me wearing that –” he gestured to Harlowe’s ensemble, a tight-fitting pair of leather pants and a black, low-cut blouse “– holding a dagger to my throat, I’d be pretty freaking scared!”

“Thomas, please. You’d be afraid to die with a boner,” Harlowe teased, “Anyway, I guess we know whyMissFuhrerwanted him dead; the man was an idiot – I wouldn’t want him running this country, either.”

Thomas snorted once more. “I wouldn’t even want him in the race where all the other idiots in this country can vote for him.”

Harlow shushed her friend loudly. “Shut up! She’s coming!”

Down the aisle of gray cubicles came sauntering Miss Elene Leblanc, the Fuhrer of whom her workers held in such high regard. She was neat, prim, and ironed. She held about her an air of authority that rivaled no other, not even that of the Queen of England. Her white-gold hair, streaked with gray, added a look of experience to her young and vivacious fashions. She was given respect, and looked at in awe; she called herself the Fuhrer of the Nightmare Offices, who ruled with an iron fist and judged with fairness. She was the best manager Harlowe had ever worked under.

“Miss Leigh, the desks are for working at, not sitting on,”MissFuhrerspoke without looking at Harlowe, “please find a better place to plant yourself.” She continued walking until she came toThomas’s desk, next to Harlowe’s. Harlowe jumped down just asMissFuhrerleaned over her friend and took his coffee off the desk. “Mister Grange, I specifically remember having restricted any and all types of liquids around the computers. I suggest you take your coffee breaks in the break room like crazy people. Am I understood?”Thomasnodded stupidly at her cleavage.

It was highly known about the Nightmare Offices that no-one who worked under MissFuhrerwould ever be considered “normal,” which was why she always said, “like ‘crazy people,’” instead of “like ‘normal people.’” It was rather understandable, really – the Offices were a group of assassins, after all. At twenty and twenty-one, Harlowe and Thomas were the Offices’ youngest employees. Miss Fuhrer did not hire by age – she hired by experience, and both of the youngsters had guaranteed experience.

MissFuhrerwalked off, leaving the duo to continue their conversation.

Thomasstared in lust afterMissFuhrer. Harlowe patted his shoulder.

“Give it up, Tiger.”

_

Ok, so I’ll add more to this later.

Basically, Harlowe’s this really badass character…yeah.

Sexiest. Assassination. Ever.

Who can argue with that?

Anyway.

Hope you like it, blah, blah, blah, the usual comments.

Peace out,

MILO